Former two-time WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev

KAZAN, August 6. /TASS/. Former two-time WBA heavyweight champion Nikolay Valuev has said Thursday he does not think that return of US actor Mickey Rourke to the ring will help develop boxing.

"He will hardly contribute to promoting boxing by returning. It is most likely a good PR stunt. He’s too old," Valuev told TASS. "Mickey Rourke will hardly make the youth interested in boxing, he is known better to people of my age and a little younger."

Rourke’s promoter Vadim Kornilov earlier told TASS that the actor plans to return to the ring in autumn and hold a six-round boxing adding that Rourke has already started training.

In November 2014, Mickey Rourke defeated 29-year-old American Elliot Seymour in an exhibition boxing match at a Moscow concert hall in what was the Hollywood actor’s return to the ring at the age of 62 for the first time in the past 20 years.